This story is from 2011. Open Source Ctr has done sentiment analysis via social media for a few yrs. using a variety of SaaS tools.
Jill Moss Internet Anti-Censorship Team Broadcasting Board of Governors (202)382-7412-direct (202)579-0399-mobile Twitter: @jmoss2 [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> On Nov 29, 2012, at 12:27 PM, "Eugen Leitl" <[email protected]> wrote: > > http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/11/how-the-cia-uses-social-media-to-track-how-people-feel/247923/ > > How The CIA Uses Social Media to Track How People Feel > > By Jared Keller > > Nov 4 2011, 4:15 PM ET > > In a nondescript building in Virginia, analysts are tracking millions of > tweets, blog posts, and Facebook updates from around the world > > How stable is China? What are people discussing and thinking in Pakistan? To > answer these sorts of question, the U.S. government has turned to a rich > source: social media. > > The Associated Press reports that the CIA maintains a social-media tracking > center operated out of an nondescript building in a Virginia industrial park. > The intelligence analysts at the agency's Open Source Center, who other > agents refer to as "vengeful librarians," are tasked with sifting through > millions of tweets, Facebook messages, online chat logs, and other public > data on the World Wide Web to glean insights into the collective moods of > regions or groups abroad. According to the Associated Press, these librarians > are tracking up to five million tweets a day from places like China, Pakistan > and Egypt: > > From Arabic to Mandarin Chinese, from an angry tweet to a thoughtful > blog, the analysts gather the information, often in native tongue. They > cross-reference it with the local newspaper or a clandestinely intercepted > phone conversation. From there, they build a picture sought by the highest > levels at the White House, giving a real-time peek, for example, at the mood > of a region after the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden or perhaps a > prediction of which Mideast nation seems ripe for revolt. > > Yes, they saw the uprising in Egypt coming; they just didn't know exactly > when revolution might hit, said the center's director, Doug Naquin. The > center already had "predicted that social media in places like Egypt could be > a game-changer and a threat to the regime," he said in a recent interview > with The Associated Press at the center. CIA officials said it was the first > such visit by a reporter the agency has ever granted. > > The CIA facility wasn't built specifically to track the ebb and flow of > social media: The program was established in response to a recommendation by > the 9/11 Commission with the initial mandate to focus on counterterrorism and > counterproliferation. According to the Associated Press, the center shifted > gears and started focusing on social media after watching thousands of > Iranian protesters turn to Twitter during the Iranian election protests of > 2009, challenging the results of the elections that put Iranian President > Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back in power. > > In the past few years, sentiment and mood analysis have become mainstays in > the defense and intelligence communities. Last October, an Electronic > Frontier Foundation lawsuit revealed how the Department of Homeland Security > has carefully monitored a variety of public online sources, from social > networks to highly popular blogs like Daily Kos for years, alleging that > "leading up to President Obama's January 2009 inauguration, DHS established a > Social Networking Monitoring Center (SNMC) to monitor social-networking sites > for 'items of interest.' "In August, the Defense Advanced Research Projects > Agency (DARPA), invited analysts to submit proposals on the research > applications of social media to strategic communication. DARPA planned on > shelling out $42 million in funding for "memetrackers" to develop "innovative > approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or > systems." > > But how useful is all of this activity? > > Memetracking is still in its infancy. I spoke with Johan Bollen, a professor > at the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University. Bollen's > research into how Twitter can be used to predict the rise and fall of the Dow > Jones Industrial Average made him a niche celebrity last year. He notes that > memetracking is facing serious challenges. For example, how do you get a > random sample? > > "You have little control over the composition of a sample," Bollen explained. > "Regular surveys are conducted with only 1000 people, but those samples are > carefully balanced to provide an accurate cross section of a given society. > This is much more difficult to do in these online environments. Sure, the > samples are huge -- there are 750 million people on Facebook -- but no matter > how you look at it, it's still possible that the sample could still be > biased. It requires someone to own a computer, to be on Facebook, to even USE > Facebook... There are all kind of biases built into these samples that are > difficult to control for." > > The other major challenge, says Bollen, is that sentiment analysis only > provides a scrape of potentially useful information. "Right now, analysis is > very specialized. We're looking at how people feel about very particular > topics," says Bollen. "There's a lot room for growth in deeper semantic > analysis: not just learning what people feel about something, but what people > think about things. There are 250 million people on Twitter....if you could > perform even a shallow analysis of people's opinions about something, their > semantic opinions, you can learn a lot from the wisdom of the crowd that > could be leveraged." > > Diving deep into the semantics of online communication is the next big > challenge for government agencies. While the Associated Press points out that > the CIA uses native dialects to determine sample sizes and pinpoint trending > topics among target groups, deciphering the intricacies of human language is > a major obstacle, and one that will not be easily overcome. > -- > Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: > https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech > -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
